The film, Inside Job, was released in 2010 and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary that year. It is narrated by Matt Damon and written and directed by Charles Ferguson. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s an excellent primer on the root causes of the financial crisis of 2008 and a precursor to the Occupy movement.  It is presented here as the answer to the question ‘why we Occupy?’. 

 

 

Angst. Usually we’re just a couple of placid grandmas peacefully knitting for the next generation of activists, but unbeknownst to most, even knitters have natural enemies. From testy ex-husbands to those meddlesome Zuccotti police… and more. So here’s a song we like to rock out to, to sooth our savage beast, stay physically if not conceptually non-violent, and dispel a little angst on stressful days. Pay special attention around 1:08 and we think you’ll get our drift. (PETA Disclaimer: No animals were harmed during the making of this video or any of our garments)

Widowed at a very young age and raising her family as a single mom, Karin Hofmann is no stranger to difficult times. But when she came to ask herself what she could do for the Occupy cause the answer was easy – come every day and knit for the next generation. Still paying off her student loans from too many years ago, at 69, Ms. Hofmann has felt our country’s financial crisis first hand but now finds hope in a newer generation. “The change isn’t going to come fast enough for me”, she says, “but I feel very confident, after a month (here in Zuccotti Park), that these kids – so kind, so generous, so smart – are smart enough that they’ll figure it out…they’ll figure out how to fix it.” Inspired by the energy of the Occupiers and the growing group of knitters, she became a founding member of #OWS Fiber Arts working group and continues to spread her love of the movement at Charlotte’s place and Zuccotti Park when the weather permits.
Seen most recently at the Occupy Town Square event at Washington Square, she continues, “That’s the paradigm shift – we all work together – and these kids, they know how to take care of each other – it’s inspiring”. As one of the first to broaden the generation range of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Karin Hofmann has helped to show America that working together towards a greater common goal can happen, even if it’s just one stitch at a time.

On a sunny day in September, 2011, Marsha Spencer saw an opportunity, an opportunity to use her skill to help a social movement she felt had value. That movement was the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and involving herself amidst the then, rather young crowd, Ms. Spencer began a movement of her own – a movement to, stitch by stitch, bring old and young, rich and poor and the haves and the have-nots together by knitting warm clothes for the soon to be winter warriors of OWS.

A hat here, a mitten there, little did Marsha Spencer know that those would be the beginning of the #OWS Fiber Arts working group and a commitment to bringing America back to its heritage, stitch by stitch.